Oh, I think I agree—if the choice is to use AI assistants or not, then use them. If they need adapting to be useful for alignment, then do adapt them.
But suppose they only work kind-of-poorly—and using them for alignment requires making progress on them (which will also be useful for capabilities), and you will not be able to keep those results internal. And that you can either do this work or do literally nothing. (Which is unrealistic.) Then I would say doing literally nothing is better. (Though it certainly feels bad, and probably costs you your job. So I guess some third option would be preferable.)
Oh, I think I agree—if the choice is to use AI assistants or not, then use them. If they need adapting to be useful for alignment, then do adapt them.
But suppose they only work kind-of-poorly—and using them for alignment requires making progress on them (which will also be useful for capabilities), and you will not be able to keep those results internal. And that you can either do this work or do literally nothing. (Which is unrealistic.) Then I would say doing literally nothing is better. (Though it certainly feels bad, and probably costs you your job. So I guess some third option would be preferable.)